Many companies put together campaigns with strong business copywriting, but then their marketing falls short when they reach the call to action. What these companies fail to realize is that the call to action is a difference-maker in your copy, and it is the key piece of your campaign to drive home your sale.

What is a call to action?

Simply put: including a call to action means asking your reader to do something. While it sounds like a simple and fairly meaningless factor, there is great power behind it. What good is beautiful, persuasive copy if the prospect doesn't know what to do next?

Because it is such an important part of your campaign, you need to give your call to action a lot of thought. Here are three things to consider when writing your next call to action:

1. What the purpose of the campaign?

Hint: it's not always to make the sale. On your website, it would be nice if every person that visited would buy from you. But that's not realistic, especially in today's market. Today's spenders are smarter; they don't just want a sales pitch. As such, you may want to consider using your campaign to convert the prospect into a warm lead. Then you can nurture that lead into a sale.

So if your campaign is simply to generate leads, you don't need to ask them to buy from you. All you need them to do is show interest in your offering. This turns your call to action from a desperate pitch to a more comfortable form of relationship building. When potential customers are comfortable, they are more willing to respond.

2. Have a compelling offering.

If you're not pushing the customer to make a sale, you need to give them a different reason to respond to your campaign. This may mean giving away something for free: a report, a gift, or a complementary service of some kind, depending on the nature of your business. The key here is to offer value to your prospect; you cannot let your offering be a different form of a sales pitch.

For example, which is more compelling: "Contact us today!" or "Contact us today for our free report: 'The 42 Secrets to Fast Real Estate Sales'!"? The second one gives a good reason to contact the company. You are obviously benefitting by getting a good lead, but the customer needs to feel that they are getting a great value by contacting you.

3. Make it easy for them to contact you.

In today's world of constant contact, nobody is going to contact you if they have to write you a letter. It is easy enough to have a sign-up box on your website for the customer to enter their email address, or to pick up the phone and give you a quick call (especially if you can offer it toll-free).

In marketing, your goal is to remove as many barriers as possible between your prospective customer and you. When you need the customer to contact you, it is your job to make it as user-friendly as possible. If they have to think too much about it, they may not bother contacting you, and you lose the sale.

At the end of every piece of copy, put yourself in your prospect's shoes and ask, "Now what? What do I do next?" If your copy has that question answered, you have a great call to action. If not, then you need to answer it, because your reader will be asking themselves that same question if you don't.

Here is a list of call to action phrases to get you started:

1. Click Here
2. Call Now
3. Buy Today
4. Register Now
5. Contact Now
6. Enroll Now
7. Add to Cart
8. Sign-up Here
9. Reserve Now
10. Get a Free Quote Today
11. Talk to an Expert
12. Immediate Download
13. Join Now
14. Start Now
15. See it in Action
16. Watch Our Tutorial
17. Learn More
18. Take the Tour
19. Donate Today
20. Find Out More

People do not have time to search around your site or other marketing materials to figure out what to do. So make it as easy as possible for them to do business with your company. If you do this to every blog post, every ezine, and every web page, you will immediately make more sales, get more subscribers, increase your revenue.

Hire Kinesis to grow your business

Our team excels at helping companies develop effective lead generation campaigns with strong calls to actions. Click here to learn more about the Kinesis approach to marketing and business consulting.